Has heard THH wrote leading article in last Reader ["Science and ""church policy"" ", 4 (1864): 821].

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Down. | Bromley. | Kent. S.E.

Jan. 4th

My dear Huxley

Very many thanks for your Photograph, which is excellent, but it makes you look too
black & solemn as if facing the bench of Bishops.—

We were all charmed with Mrs. Huxley ``too sincere''
note. Oh that I should live to be called
``Owen-like''! I was indeed innocent of concealing the context, for I did not read one
line beyond the charming lines which I quoted, & they were enough for me!

How hard you are worked & I do wish that you had more leisure or at least not
so many lectures. It is an absolute marvel to me how much you do.— I knew
there was very little chance of your having time to write a popular treatise on
Zoology; but you are about the one man that could do it. At
the time I felt it would be almost a sin for you to do it, as it would of course destroy
some original work. On the other hand, I sometimes think that general
& popular Treatises are almost as important for the progress of science as
original work.— As for writing being a great labour to you, I can
hardly swallow that. Your words on paper seem always to come out spontaneously. I have
heard it hinted that you wrote the slashing leading article in the last Reader. It is a capital article whether or no you wrote it. That is
splendid about the pump & shoes—

I am no great thing in health, but manage most days to do a little work.—

In his Reader article, Huxley criticised what he considered to be the
prevailing bias among statesmen and church leaders against the introduction of science
into élite English schools, such as Eton. The reform of these schools was
currently being considered by Parliament, following a report that had been prepared by
the government-appointed Clarendon Commission, which contained recommendations for
supplementing the traditional curriculum of classical languages and mathematics with
other subjects, including the natural sciences (see Shrosbree 1988). Huxley
cited a passage from one of the opponents of scientific education, who had drawn an
analogy between teaching the physical laws of an air pump, and teaching the art of
shoemaking ([T. H. Huxley] 1864b, p. 821): How will an Eton boy be the better for knowing how to make a pump?
Doubtless it is a good thing to know how to make a pump; but it is also a good thing
to know how to make shoes; and yet you do not propose to introduce shoemaking as a
branch of liberal education.